New Zealand's economy is more dependent on agricultural exports, such as dairy, beef, and venison, than any other postindustrial country. One of the greatest threats to continued success in this market is bovine tuberculosis (TB). Since the 1970s, New Zealand's government has spent more than NZ$1 billion to help manage the disease. Other than preventing revenue loss from infected herds, the biggest concern is that bovine TB can be transmitted from cattle to humans. While bovine TB has been successfully eradicated in much of the developed world, it remains a serious health threat in New Zealand.

Geographic distribution of residual trap catch results after completion of a vector control operation.

The Animal Health Board (AHB) was created in New Zealand in 1999 to prevent bovine TB incidence and decrease losses in agricultural production. AHB is a nonprofit incorporated society with representatives from the farming sector and local government. Its mission is to eradicate bovine TB from New Zealand by 2013. The major source of TB in cattle and deer herds in New Zealand is contact with wild vectors, mainly the brush-tailed possum. The 35 to 70 million possums, which eat 7.5 million tons of vegetation a year as well as the eggs and chicks of native birds, are seen as a major pest in New Zealand. Disease control includes surveillance, testing, and eradication of TB within cattle and deer herds.

New Zealand needed to set regional and national control targets, but control was a challenge because there was a lack of uniformity in capturing activity progress and results. Another difficulty was that activities were scattered over a large area—more than 7,000 projects covering 8.4 million hectares. Before AHB took over the management of the vector control process, more than a dozen regional councils used different methodologies to try to achieve this task. Some used GIS peripherally, for basemaps, while others were still creating maps manually. AHB took the best practices from these councils to develop business rules, procedures, and interfaces for a geospatial approach to control. This new approach would incorporate local knowledge at the regional level but would centralize it at the national level. Operation managers needed to visualize the number of possums in different regions, then link this to performance and financial data so they could identify the most effective control efforts. This information, sent by more than 150 contractors in the field, needed to be uploaded and organized in a standardized manner so that managers could do spatial searches to aggregate data, prepare summary reports, and manage contracts. The solution had to be easy to use to ensure that quality data would be input by users to provide accurate end results.

AHB created VectorNet, a Web site that uses a map-based interface to access, query, and report on all aspects of AHB's disease and vector control processes. ArcSDE [Note: At ArcGIS 9.2, ArcSDE stopped being sold as a stand-alone product. It is now included with both ArcGIS Desktop and ArcGIS Server.] was tightly integrated into the application, built on Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and securely deployed over the Internet to multiple partners. After careful analysis of technology options available, AHB chose to work with Eagle Technology Group, Esri's distributor in New Zealand. For a complete desktop and online system, Eagle Technology Group provided ArcGIS software, including ArcIMS, ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcGIS Spatial Analyst. A full release of VectorNet was rolled out after just 19 months of analyzing system requirements and software development.

ArcSDE server technology links more than a dozen uncoordinated regional systems so that nonspatial data is tied to locations, creating consistent, accurate, and easy-to-manage geodatabases. A hierarchy of geographic layers underpins the 7,000 vector control activities, such as laying traps, in the annual vector control program. The complexities of the server technology are overshadowed by the intuitive look and feel of Web-based ArcIMS maps that allow the data to be shared and easily understood by nontechnical field contractors. A geospatial approach integrated with operational data creates verifiable processes to better manage current projects and formulate future predictions.

Internally, approximately 40 people use these ArcGIS applications for contract management, strategic planning, and reporting. Individual field contractors have the capability to update the database from the field with GPS-enabled handheld devices, then upload information through a Web browser to VectorNet. The data is validated, then added to the geodatabase.

VectorNet uses a statistically based model to calculate areas of possum habitat, using land-cover data to automatically determine the number of traps required in more than 800 areas, to meet the population monitoring requirements. The key metric for measuring incidence is the annual period prevalence (APP). In June 2004, the prevalence was 0.75 percent, and in 2008, it had been reduced to 0.34 percent. The goal is 0.2 percent by 2013, with total eradication hoped for by 2035. ArcGIS technology is essential in the success of eradication projects.

Current spending on control of bovine TB is in excess of NZ$80 million per annum. AHB estimates that VectorNet will save the government NZ$30 million in its first decade. AHB also expects a net present value (NPV) of NZ$1.9 million for the GIS project. "A positive NPV shows that VectorNet is worth the investment of capital. We have calculated a payback period of 3.3 years," avows Alison Barrett, manager of Business Strategy and Systems, AHB, "but that's just the beginning. For instance, removing duplicate efforts is expected to reduce management support staff costs from 60 FTEs [full-time employees] to 40 FTEs per annum. Similarly, we expect a NZ$550K gain on the overall vector program budget through efficiencies and elimination of inaccuracies and noncompliance by automating the tendering and contract management."

In addition, by linking spatial and textual data and providing this information over the Internet, there is increased visibility of decisions and improved access to information. This standardization also allows easier sharing of data with other organizations.

"The GIS model we have developed is robust and could easily be modified for similar applications, such as invasive species or other diseases," shares Barrett. "We are now gearing up to market the system to other organizations that could benefit from linking geospatial, operational, and financial data."

AHB's VectorNet, based on an ArcGIS platform, received New Zealand Computerworld's 2008 Supreme Award for Overall Excellence in the Use of Information and Computer Technology (ICT) and the Award for Innovative Use of ICT.

More Information

For more information, contact Alex McGregor, IT manager, AHB (e-mail: mcgregora@ahb.org.nz).